My 2022 Summer Body Goals
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ALERT: This is episode is bringing you MORE real talk on our summer bodies! In fact, I dive into what my personal summer body goals are and exactly what they are not…and why!
The purpose of this episode is to change your mindset around having a “hot girl summer” and instead aiming to have a “strong girl summer”. This episode will change your mindset away from thinking you need a perfectly chiseled body to enjoy your summer to having full confidence in your body and enjoying your summer to the fullest!
What I discuss:
The pressure of having a “hot girl summer”
How to definition of a “hot girl summer” has evolved
The issues with aiming to have a “hot girl summer”
What my summer body goals are
Why we should focus on having a strong girl summer instead
How to actually have a strong girl summer
What should you listen to next? I know you’ll love this one…
240: A Pep Talk on Your “Summer Body”
If you want more from me, be sure to check out…
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, Hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of embrace your real with me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body and unconditionally loving your authentic self stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace your real, let's get it. Let's go.
Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode of the embrace real podcast. This episode is dedicated to my quote summer body goals. That might not be what you think. So keep tuning in. I actually recently did an episode on our summer bodies and I gave you a pep talk. It was episode 240. I will link it in the show notes below, but I had a lot of women just say, Hey, I really need some more real talk on this topic. This is something that I'm struggling with. And so in today's episode, I'm going to be giving you kind of more guidance on changing your mindset away from thinking that you need to be perfectly lean and tone and chiseled to enjoy your summer. And instead, just stepping into your confidence to the fullest and truly accepting and embracing your body. Of course, that doesn't mean that you can't have goals, but just kind of shifting that mindset away from the current pressure of society to have a "hot girl" summer and why that's not a goal of mine.
And then I'm going to dive into what my summer body goals are instead. So again, it is totally up to you on which you choose and what your goals are for the summer, but I'm just going to be giving you some real talk. So maybe food for thought. So that is what today's outline is for today's bonus episode. But before I dive in, I wanted to share this super sweet review. It comes from Gianca xa. She says the realness, "hello, as a believer fitness enthusiast and overall human endeavoring to be my best self, your podcast is so refreshing. Thank you, girl. Keep doing you." I love this so much. Thank you so much for your reviews. All of your reviews truly do mean the world to me, and they really just help us out in the podcast world of reaching more women. So thank you in advance.
I appreciate you so much. If you do leave a reading interview, you can screenshot that and then send it to me in a direct message. I love personally responding back to you guys and just personally thanking you because it overall just helps us reach more women. And that's the ultimate goal. The better you are in terms of the charts that just means that the more eyeballs you get on your podcast and our ultimate goal is to reach as many women as possible with this podcast to help them embrace their real. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you in advance. Let's dive in. So first I want to start off by talking about the "hot girl summer" in fact, I want to talk about why hot girl summer is something I will never truly aim for. What does a hot girl summer even mean?
Why would I want to have a hot girl summer? And who is the decider of who is hot and who is not right? That quote that says beauty is within the eye of the beholder. I think that's, the literal meaning is that perception of beauty is so subjective and hot girl summer. Okay. What does that even mean? So I did some research on this topic and according to urban dictionary, Glamor magazine, and a few other reputable sources, hot girl summer is defined by having a summer full of fun while believing in yourself. So it essentially means being yourself to the fullest and having the most fun possible over the summer and essentially that you're going to do summer your way and not care about what anyone thinks. Now, this is a great message, right? This in and of itself is having as much possible fun over the summer. Awesome, great. You're going to do summer your way.
Not care about what other people think, right? You're not going to be held back by other people's expectations or what you think they're thinking of you. That's great. That's a great message. This is what summer should be. You should be yourself. You should have fun and not really care about what other people think, this is an ideal way to spend your summer. So everyone should have a hot girl summer, right? Well, not quite because unfortunately, this very kind of positive message of having a hot girl summer has evolved. And it's truly evolved into something that I personally don't want. In fact, you'll never catch me here saying I'm going to have a hot girl summer. I have chosen some other words and I've seen so many other different variations of, balance girl summer, strong girl summer, which is the one that really captures my attention.
And some other ones that I've seen kind of floating around and this term has evolved into a few other things, but I'm just going to kind of focus on one of the aspects. Having a hot girl summer has evolved into having a hot body, into looking hot. Now, the women who are wanting to have a hot girl summer do in fact care about what other people think, and they do care of what is hot in the eyes of others, right? They aren't having fun to the fullest because they're constantly concerned about what they look like. And they're not being their truest selves because they're showing up trying to impress other people. And again, this has nothing to do with you having goals of trying to better yourself, whether that be mentally, spiritually, physically, whatever it is. But I just feel like hot girl summer has evolved from being authentic, to being very curated.
Actually I love the word in reference to hot girl, summer curated. It feels extremely curated to me. It's not a summer where you just go out and have a bunch of fun. It's a summer where you're curating what you look like, what your aesthetic is, all of those things and what your summer looks like and what your summer should be like. And your trip to Greece and all these things. And these things are amazing. But just remember, they're highlight reels. Remember that what you were seeing on TikTok and on Instagram of this highlight reel of this trip to Italy or this trip in a van or in a camper or whatever it is, whatever attracts your attention or your eyes. I know all of our ideal vacations are totally different, for me being on a lake all week is literally my dream.
When for somebody else, it could be being on an exotic beach in Bora Bora or whatever it is. I have just found that there are so many times that we are just comparing ourselves. And I feel like this hot girl summer has just evolved into another variation of the curation that we've seen. And we've seen evolved, especially on Instagram. Instagram used to be super real and raw. And then people's feeds started going to very aesthetic, trying to get an aesthetic. And while I think TikTok has torn that veil a little bit simply because it's a video platform. So you, people are watching you versus just static photos. And I feel like on Instagram, you could hide behind static photos a lot easier, but even on TikTok, just remember, even though it's a video platform and it's a little bit more authentic when it comes to actual videos, you're still only seeing highlight reels.
You're still only seeing what people are choosing to show to the world. They could be showing this sunset of them in front of them and posting that and saying, oh my gosh, look how beautiful this is. But you have no idea that they could be crying behind the phone while they're taking it. Those types of things you just don't know and the same goes for just this overall movement of hot girl summer. Man, you're seeing these highlight reels of these girls who are posing in these angles and this lighting that just is giving their body the best. And I will tell you, I'll be the first to say, if you have some bomb lighting and you throw up a flex, man, that is, so it just, I mean, I'll be the first to say that I do that. And, but I will also be the first to say, just remember that's a highlight reel and I don't walk around like that and you don't walk around like that and they don't walk around like that. Right.
And so just remembering that, and I think that overall, this hot girl summer has kind of evolved into this, not feeling good enough, like man, this girl's hot girl summer is so much better than mine and look at her body and all of these things. And it's leading people to punish their body and deprive their body just to obtain this kind of hot girl summer status. And it's just becoming very stressful. As you can tell, I'm sure I'm kind of rambling on about it. It's become just, I'm very passionate about it. And I just want women to know that you don't have to fit in to everybody else. You don't have to try to do this. One trend that I've seen a lot when it comes to the hot girl summer is the walking, hot girl summer walks. And I love the intent behind it.
I think walking is a fabulous way to get stress out, to overall make better changes in your healthy lifestyle. There's so many benefits of walking when it comes to doing that consistently, but walking for what? For a hot girl summer, just to look hot, it's just that whole mindset behind it. And so that's why I personally am striving for a strong girl summer. What if we focus more on being strong rather than being hot? Let's go back to the real definition of what urban dictionary said hot girl summer was. And instead call it strong girl summer. I want to be strong. I want to be strong mentally. I want to be strong physically. Instead of depriving ourselves and punishing our bodies to look hot, we're going to honor our body. We're going to nourish our body. We're going to move our body so that we become strong.
And instead of feeling self-conscious in our body and feeling like we're not hot enough, we're going to show up with confidence, knowing how strong we are, both mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, all of those things. We're going to wear the dang shorts. We're going to wear the dang crop top or the tank top or the bathing suit or whatever it is. We're going to love the way that our strong legs or our arms look, we're going to embrace our strong body. And we're going to show up authentically in our strong body and know that everybody's strong body is going to look different and strong to them is going to mean something different. But instead of the word hot, we are striving for strength and we're going to do what we want. And of course, we're still going to have the best time not focusing on what other people are thinking.
Instead, we're focusing on how can we be stronger today than we were yesterday. Remember in this life, it is always you versus you. It is always you versus you. How can you show up a little bit better than you did yesterday? What are the lessons that you can learn from the mistakes maybe that you made yesterday or the failures that you had yesterday? How, are there ways? Are there things that you can implement that will help you become just a little bit stronger today than you were yesterday? So all of this, focusing on being better and stronger than I was yesterday, this is truly what my summer body goals are, how can I be stronger today than I was yesterday? What are the things that I can do differently that will allow me to show up as the strongest version of myself, for the people that I love and the things that I do on a daily basis.
And so personally that is my 2022 summer body goals. It might be unconventional. It might not be something that you were expecting, but I want to honor my body. I want to honor my body. I want to nourish my body. Of course, I want to move my body, but I'm not doing it to look hot. I'm doing it because I want to feel strong. I personally had the fittest shell, I've had the six pack. I've had the lot, least amount of body fat that I ever have. And I'm telling you that didn't make me feel more confident. It didn't, it made me feel stressed. It made me feel anxious. It made me feel like I was constantly like, oh my gosh, I'm still not lean enough. I'm still not strong enough. And I was constantly fixated on this outward shell. And again, having those body goals and having those physical goals are not bad.
But if you do not have any spiritual goals or mental goals that you are setting for yourself, you will set yourself up for failure. I'm telling you speaking from experience. If you are only going off of the surface level, hot girl summer goals, you are not going to feel any more confident. In fact, you are likely going to feel more anxious, more depressed, more self-conscious. And that is not what I want for you this summer. Remember when you get older, you're not going to regret having the best time possible. When you were younger, you're going to regret wasting your younger years, obsessing over what your body looked like. When you get older, you're not going to care about the fact that you weighed 1, 2, 5, 10, 15 pounds, less in your thirties. You're going to care about the amazing memories that you created. So please hear my heart on this again.
I'm not saying you can't have physical goals. I personally have physical goals when it comes to my strong girl summer, I want to feel stronger. I want to increase my weight a little bit on my deadlift. I want to push myself. I just overall want to be in my strongest physical body that I can be, but I'm more focused on my mental aspect. I'm more focused on my spiritual aspect, my relational aspects, those are the things that are most important to me this summer. And so all of that kind of goes into my strong girl summer. So I would love to know your thoughts on this. I would love to know your thoughts on hot girl summer versus strong girl summer. So we shared a screenshot this, and you can post it up on your story. Give me a tag, juliealedbetter also embrace your real. If you love this episode, like I mentioned earlier, you will also love episode 240. A pep talk on your summer body.
That is definitely something that you're going to want to bookmark and listen to on the days that you're feeling defeated, on the days that you're feeling frustrated. This is kind of a great sister to sister pep talk for you. I love you so much. If you have a sister or someone in your life that you feel like would benefit from hearing about strong girl summer and kind of just reframing and rewiring your mindset, be sure to copy the link, send it to them in a text message. Or you could also screenshot this and post it up on your Instagram story and tag them and say, Hey, give this a listen. I love seeing those. I love seeing your aha moments. That is all that I have for today's bonus episode. I will talk to you in the next one. Love you.
All right, sister. That's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, Julie a led better. Yes, it's with an a in the middle for that daily post workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check the second thing, be sure to subscribe to apple podcast, to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your reel because you're worth it.